http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2012/11/report-climate-change-threatens-national-security/ Keeping You Current Sat, 25 May 2013 20:52:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4 http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2012/11/report-climate-change-threatens-national-security/comment-page-1/#comment-1803 Dasarathi Bhuyan Thu, 15 Nov 2012 05:33:59 +0000 http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/?p=7075#comment-1803 The idea of unlimited growth by almost all the countries of the globe must be questioned on two grounds; the availability of basic resources and also the capacity of the environment to cope with abuse by human beings. Both are strictly limited. So much for the physical-material-aspects of the matter, let us now turn to certain non-material aspects. Modern economic systems are driven by limitless greed and envy. But can these forces be effective for long, or do they carry within themselves the seeds of destruction? Economic progress is possible only through the powerful impulses of greed and selfishness, which religion and traditional wisdom ask us to resist. Modern economic systems are driven by limitless greed and envy. But can these forces be effective for long, or do they carry within themselves of destruction? If human vices such as greed and envy are systematically cultivated, the result is nothing less than a collapse of intelligence. A man driven by greed and envy can not see things as they really are, in their roundness and wholeness; his very successes become his failures. The foundations of peace can not be laid by universal prosperity because such prosperity, if feasible at all, can be attained only by cultivating the forces of greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness and serenity and thereby the peaceful instincts of man. The rich can become richer only by continuing to make intolerable demands on limited world resources. The economic wisdom requires a total re-orientation of science and technology. Scientific or technological ‘solutions’ which poison the environment or degrade society or the individual are of no benefit. Ever bigger machines, ever bigger concentrations of economic power, causing ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science towards the organic, the gentle, the simple, the elegant and beautiful, instead of using our technology to create machines which churn out more and more goods to satisfy our ever-increasing wants and destroy our beautiful earth, we must try to bring about a revolution in technology which will reverse the present trend towards destruction. The wise men of the globe, such as Buddha, Christ and Gandhi, have long preached the virtue of modernization in all things, or renunciation and sacrifice. Today, when the globe is threatened by the very technology that we have created in our thirst for wealth, we need modernization more than ever before. The desire for unlimited growth must cease, for in the long run, simple living and high thinking is better. The idea of unlimited growth by almost all the countries of the globe must be questioned on two grounds; the availability of basic resources and also the capacity of the environment to cope with abuse by human beings. Both are strictly limited. So much for the physical-material-aspects of the matter, let us now turn to certain non-material aspects. Modern economic systems are driven by limitless greed and envy. But can these forces be effective for long, or do they carry within themselves the seeds of destruction?
Economic progress is possible only through the powerful impulses of greed and selfishness, which religion and traditional wisdom ask us to resist. Modern economic systems are driven by limitless greed and envy. But can these forces be effective for long, or do they carry within themselves of destruction?
If human vices such as greed and envy are systematically cultivated, the result is nothing less than a collapse of intelligence. A man driven by greed and envy can not see things as they really are, in their roundness and wholeness; his very successes become his failures.
The foundations of peace can not be laid by universal prosperity because such prosperity, if feasible at all, can be attained only by cultivating the forces of greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness and serenity and thereby the peaceful instincts of man. The rich can become richer only by continuing to make intolerable demands on limited world resources.
The economic wisdom requires a total re-orientation of science and technology. Scientific or technological ‘solutions’ which poison the environment or degrade society or the individual are of no benefit. Ever bigger machines, ever bigger concentrations of economic power, causing ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science towards the organic, the gentle, the simple, the elegant and beautiful, instead of using our technology to create machines which churn out more and more goods to satisfy our ever-increasing wants and destroy our beautiful earth, we must try to bring about a revolution in technology which will reverse the present trend towards destruction.
The wise men of the globe, such as Buddha, Christ and Gandhi, have long preached the virtue of modernization in all things, or renunciation and sacrifice. Today, when the globe is threatened by the very technology that we have created in our thirst for wealth, we need modernization more than ever before. The desire for unlimited growth must cease, for in the long run, simple living and high thinking is better.

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